A battery electric vehicle (shown as "BEV240") could be responsible for more social damage in the form of emissions than a plug-in hybrid, largely as a result of battery size. (Source: Carnegie Mellon University)

Hey Irishmuse, where did you get your info, my understanding is that Large wind turbines replace their energy debt quite quickly, - a 1 meg machine I read about says, "Within 4 months of operation a Nordic 1000 has generated enough energy to pay back the energy used in it's manufacture, transports, installation and destruction.

Solar panels used to be two years, but more modern Solar panels are more efficient and use less material so that would be less, perhaps much less.

I can't imagine any Nuclear plant including the energy debt of it's destruction in it's analysis except to say, "the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons to the 3rd and 4th generation", but I fear that that is no where near long enough with Nuclear waste

Yes, it's a good point, Jack. Right now, automakers are getting government subsidies for building alternative fuel vehicles, which softens the risk for them. If those subsidies go away, we might see someone blink.

Good point, Jack. Whatever regulations coming out of California or Europe will affect all production. Manufacturers are not going to make separate products just for California or Europe. RoHS proved that.

Actually, Rob, I'm starting to be surprised that there isn't some blowback yet toward the regulations coming out of places like Europe or California. Sooner or later, the big players are going hit a cost benefit wall and decide to abandon one of these markets. It will be interesting to see who blinks first in that situation.

Robatnorcross, you are centainly right about European regulations reaching across the whole world. I was a bit surprised that the RoHS and REACH regulations became effectively worldwide law. Companies decided not to make products for Europe only, so they went with the regulations for products sold everywhere.

Hi rob, If we are only there to protect the Europeans we should send them the bill for the protection service. May be we could recoup some of the stupid costs that come out of Brussells in the form of regulations they seem to be able to impose on the rest of the planet. Apparently they can't run themselves (Brussells) so they try to tell everyone else what to do. "Do as I say, not as I do".

It would be interesting to look at overall lifecycle costs for other energy sources: photovoltaic, wind, biodiesel. Better yet, maybe we could develop a standard carbon output per power output ratio to be able to compare different energy generating methods over their lifetime.

Guarding shipping lanes is an interesting geo-political issue, Robatnorcross. Say we become energy independent -- which looks possible now. Would we simply come home? Or would we need to continue that activity on behalf of our European allies?

Hi Rob, why would you need to protect the shipping lanes if not for oil. On the other hand may be all those TV's, cell phones and micro chips they make over there need to be protected. Oh wait, they don't make ANYTHING there other than sand and rocks and illegal narcotics.

When was the last time you saw "MADE IN AFGANISTAN" on anything other than heroin containers.

Some cars are more reliable than others, but even the vehicles at the bottom of this year’s Consumer Reports reliability survey are vastly better than those of 20 years ago in the key areas of powertrain and hardware, experts said this week.

As it does every year, Consumers Union recently surveyed its members on the reliability of their vehicles. This year, it collected data on approximately 1.1 million cars and trucks, categorizing the members’ likes and dislikes, not only of their vehicles, but of the vehicle sub-systems, as well.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

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